Bearers at Ease

by leonidas701

Secret Depths Part 1

It was just barely morning when Spike woke up. He was enjoying a nice dream about eating gems when he heard loud hoofbeats echoing throughout the tree. He tried to roll over and go back to sleep, but then he remembered that Twilight hadn’t been home in a while. Assuming that this was her returning, he decided to go find and ask her why she was out for so long. He stumbled along inside the dark house until his vision started to adjust, tracking her by the sound of her hoofs as she walked through the dark corridors when suddenly she stopped moving. The last sounds had come from the direction of her bedroom, so Spike decided to check there.

When he got to the room, he opened the door and started to say something. He stopped before his first syllable when he saw Twilight, able to just make out her profile in the 1 a.m. darkness. She was sitting at her desk, staring blankly down at the wooden surface. He walked up to her.

“Twi?” he hesitantly asked. “Is something wrong?”

Twilight jerked her head back at the sudden noise. She swiveled her neck around searching for its source when she spotted Spike standing in the doorway. She sighed. “No, Spike. Everything’s fine,” she said hollowly as she rubbed her eyes.

Even Spike’s seven year old brain could tell that she was lying, but he didn’t know what to do. He decided to ask. “Anything I can do to help?”

Twilight sighed again. “No, no, it-- it’s-- no. Just go to sleep.”

Spike felt like there was something he should do, but he had no idea what. He just cast her a worried glance and started to leave.

“Wait,” Twilight said. “Actually, could you light this for me?” She held out a candle.

Spike blew a small spark at the candle and a green flame sprouted, illuminating the room in an eerie emerald glow.

“Thanks. Good night, Spike.”

“Good night.” With that Spike went back to his room to spent half an hour wondering what had happened to rattle Twilight so badly, and, more importantly, why she wasn’t willing to tell him. But, it’s not Spike who we are concerned with.

Twilight sighed for the third time in the past minute, her breath making the green flame on her desk dance. She reached into one of her drawers and levitated out a blank scroll, a quill, and some ink. She put the items on her desk and began thinking about how to phrase what she was about to say.

Dear Princess Celestia,


It has recently been revealed to me that

Twilight crumpled up the parchment and chucked it in the bin. She sighed again, this time so forcefully she nearly put the candle out, and buried her face in her hooves. How do I even begin with this? she thought. After a solid ten minutes of just sitting there, she picked up the quill again, deciding to just write it as it came.

Celestia,



Card told me. He told me everything. About the Sea, about why he’s here, about what- No, who he is. He showed me his scars and his eyes. He even took me to the Sea and showed me it. Oh Celestia, I can still feel it. And even now, knowing what it is, I still want to go back to it, to see it, feel it, again. I don’t know how he handles it.

Let me go back and tell you what happened from the start. During the day Card had asked me to meet up with him and Trixie at the forest. So, after I was finished with Winter Wrap-Up and had sent you my friendship report, I went.

-----10:45 p.m.-----

-----Outskirts of the Everfree Forest-----

“Hey, Trixie,” Twilight said as she saw her friend standing outside the trees.

“‘Bout time you got here,” Trixie replied. “You’re almost late.”

“Why are you so grumpy?”

“You woke me up at 6! I’m tired.”

“Oh. Sorry, again.”

“Ugh. No problem.” Trixie waved her hoof and turned to go into the forest. “Card said he’d be just inside from here.”

The two mares went into the thick treeline, covering their heads with magic spells to deflect the branches that they thought they would be running into. The spells proved useless when they found that, beyond the trees they had to go through to get in, there were none. Instead of the dense, dark foliage they were expecting from their last excursions, they found themselves immediately in the meadow that surrounded Card’s massive manor, the starlight bright enough even without the moon’s help that they could see the stallion himself sitting on a rock waiting for them.

While they were confused from the drastic difference from their expectations, Card walked up to them with a big smile on his face.

“Hey hello there. Glad to see you both were able to come make it,” he said as he brushed some dirt off the back of his jacket.

“Hi,” Twilight said as she shook her head.

“Yeah, hi, hey, Card, I thought your house was a bit further into the forest?” Trixie asked.

“Yeah, I didn’t feel like walking moved it here.” Card clapped his hooves and turned towards his house. “Come on,” he said. “I’ve got a lot to show you and a short not much time to do it in.” He walked off. The two mares looked at each other and followed him into the manor.

When they were walking through the house, they were treated to an interesting sight. The floors that used to be spotless wood now had what looked like a single long strip of tape crisscrossing all around them, going under the doors and, the mares assumed, into other rooms.

“What all this stuff for?” Trixie asked, trying to fill the silence as they started walking through the house, pointing at the floor with her horn.

“Trixie,” Card said with concern as he looked at her over his shoulder. “That’s tape.”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “Yes, but why is it there?”

“Oh.” Card looked relieved as he opened the door to a corridor. “Well, I have guests staying here, and I don’t want somepony getting lost again, so I need to make everything stay in stick.”

“...What?” Twilight asked.

Card suddenly stopped in place, almost making the mares bump into him. “Stick. In. Place,” he said, almost to himself, emphasizing each word with a little bounce of his front hooves from left to right in front of him.

“Oh. Oh, yeah. How much longer are they staying?” Trixie asked.

“In Ponyville or with me? Because if it’s Ponyville I don’t a clue.”

“Wait,” Trixie said. “Was that ‘Don’t care,’ or ‘Have no clue’?”

“Yes.” Card put on the most self satisfied grin he had that would have almost certainly gotten him flicked if either mare could see it. Instead he just got a glare from Trixie.

As the trio walked a little further into the house they began to hear sounds of carnage from the side walls.

“What is that?” Twilight asked.

“Oh, that’s just Odd--”

“I would say so,” Trixie muttered.

“--he’s eating. Well, you know. ‘Eating’.” Card made massive air quotes with his forehooves. He then looked at his hooves like he was either confused at what they had just done or, more likely, was suddenly struck by the realization that he possessed them.

This made the mares both pause and look at each other significantly.

“Card,” Twilight asked haltingly, “are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah, you seem a little… Drunk,” Trixie said.

Card chuckled at the notion. “No, I’m fine. Better than fine. I feel good. Really good. Not too good though; that’s why we had to wait. See?” he asked, turning around and looking both mares in the eye. Only one eye each mind you, he didn’t have glasses. “Now come on, we’re almost there.”

The trio had walked to the end of the part of the manor that had tape on the floor, and were faced with a door that had a symbol drawn on it, three triangles in a row, with the middle on flipped upside down, and two circles, one using the bottom of the middle on as its diameter, and the other using the length of all the triangle bases. He pressed open the door and they were in… a perfectly normal room. Card strode to the door on the other side.

“No. No. No. No. Nh. Nh. Nh. Nh. Nh,” he said as he opened and closed the door, trying to make it open to the correct destination. “Ahh!” he finally said. “Come on, it’s just through, through here.” He waved the mares into the small, dark room that he had managed to finally get to.

As Twilight entered the room she was filled with a desire to go off to somewhere. Maybe to grab a bagel, or go to the bathroom, and, thinking about it, was she sure she had properly filled those returned book. She was in the process of turning away, not really even thinking about it, when Card spoke up again. “Come on, it’s just past this door.”

“What door?” Trixie asked, herself almost facing back the way they came.

“This door.” Card grabbed their hooves, suddenly those stray thoughts had left Twilight’s head, and pressed them against the wall. At least that’s what it looked like at first. When they made contact the wall faded away and revealed itself to be an ornate door, tens of feet high, and easily six feet across.

“See?” he asked. He took their hooves off and put them back on. And again. And again. And again. “--left hoof in, you put your left hoof out. You put your left hoof in and you--”

“Card!” Trixie said, jerking her hoof out of his grip. Suddenly she started turning back again. Card put a hoof on her side and she stopped. “Okay, what is that!”

“Eeehhh, I’ll explain later. For now, we need to go in. Both of you, put one hoof on my side so I can stop holding you and open the door.” The mares did so. Card reached for the door and-- OW!

-----Oh Shit! N, Speak to Me!!! Uhh, Back to the Letter!-----

Celestia, it was so strange. His entire expression vanished the second he touched the door. His smile, his wide eyes, everything gone; it was like he turned into a robot. I was scared, and wanted to ask, but then Trixie looked at me and shook her head.

Card slid the door to the side, and I felt... I don’t know how to say it. A push, from somewhere deep within me, to go forward. I needed to go forward. So, we did.

We went through the door and across a short walkway. We came to a bright beach, with sand that was so crystal clear that you could look straight down to the edge of sight. But I only noticed that as we left, because the moment I could see through the door I was my eyes were drawn forward. When we got close enough, I saw it.

I don’t know how to describe it. It was so clearly there, but I couldn’t make out a shape. It was completely see through, and yet still so opaque, and colorful, though never a consistent color. It wasn’t patchy, it was like every part was a different shade, but for less then a second before it shifted. the crest were going up, sideways, below the surface, every which way except for towards the beach and, thinking about it, it may have even had some of those that I just didn’t notice. I could have stared at it for hours. I was completely enthralled, not even blinking, until I felt a sharp burst of pain on the back of my head. I yelped and turned around, snapping out of it to see Card standing there with both mine and Trixie’s hair in hoof.

Trixie asked him why he did that, and he said that we had been staring at it for fifteen minutes, and, if anything, I think he underestimated it. I asked him what it was and he told me it was the Sea of Chaos.

A/N: This is a good place for a chapter break while I go revive N.

Comments

[SageBrony07]

Good job with this chapter. this is defiantly eerie. Good luck with the next chapter.